p. 11 | Laughter and Health

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 14, 1904

Laughter and Health

It is natural, that is, in accordance with nature, to laugh. This is not to say that it is natural to be foolish, or silly; but circumstances often occur under which a laugh is irrepressible. One reason why this is so—why it is thus ordained in nature—may appear in the fact that laughter is a great conservator of health. It is an exercise everybody needs. In this world, where evil and sorrow and disease abound on every hand, the capacity and the opportunity to laugh may well be recognized as among nature’s beneficent provisions for this state of being, however unnecessary they might be under an ideal state of existence.

On this subject a writer in Success says the following:—

“People ask me daily, when they look at my face that is without a wrinkle,” says Adelina Patti, “what I do to keep so young. I tell them that whenever I have felt a wrinkle coming, I have laughed it away. They can scarcely believe me. Women ask me if I do not use certain creams; if I do not advocate face-steaming, massage, or some other artificial beautifying process; or if I do not bathe in milk, or mineral water, or champagne. But I answer that I do none of these things. I never use anything but plain water, and I laugh my wrinkles away.”

“If we realized the power of good cheer and the habit of laughter to retard the progress of age and to stay the hand which writes the wrinkles of care and anxiety on the face, we should have discovered the famed fountain of youth—the elixir of life.”

“The power of laughter, the rejuvenating force of cheerfulness, ought to be taught in our schools, especially our medical schools.”

Laughter as a Tonic

“There is nothing better established among physicians than that cheerfulness prolongs life, and also enriches and enlarges it. Whole-souled, joyous laughter is a powerful health tonic. ‘There is not one remotest corner or little inlet of the minute blood-vessels of the human body,’ says an eminent physician, ‘that does not feel some wavelet from the convulsions occasioned by a good, hearty laugh.’ Laughter stimulates the digestive process, accelerates the respiration, and gives a warm glow to the whole system. It brightens the eye, expands the chest, forces the poison out from the least-used lung cells, fills them with life-giving oxygen, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health.

“Some time ago a patient in an insane asylum was suffering from extreme melancholia. He did not laugh or smile. Day after day he sat or walked with an expression of settled melancholy on his face. Months passed, without bringing any change in his condition. Finally his physician resolved to try a new form of treatment—the laugh cure. He employed a large, jovial, hearty man to come to the patient’s door every day and laugh. What peals the visitor sent ringing through the whole establishment, of deep, melodious, side-shaking laughter, so joyous, hearty, and infectious that every one who heard was compelled to join in it! But the melancholy sufferer looked at the laughing man with the same deep, immovable gloom upon his face. One day, while the laughter was convulsing every one in his vicinity, the patient suddenly stopped pacing his room, and burst into a hearty laugh. The effect was magical. The light of reason shone once more in his face. He looked around in a dazed way, and asked, ‘Where am I? What is this place?’ The black clouds of gloom had been dispersed. The melancholia had departed. The man was in his right mind again. Laughter had done for him what the physicians, the drugs, and all the treatment at the asylum had failed to do.

“If people only knew what the habit of practising real side-shaking laughter every day would do for them, thousands of physicians would be looking for a change of employment. If you want to be well and happy, practise laughing. Don’t be afraid to let yourself out. Shake yourself with deep, hearty laughter several times a day. It will do more for you than horseback-riding, a gymnasium, or solemn, sober walks. It is the best kind of recreation. It is nature’s great safety-valve. It gives the body more resisting power. It doubles one’s force, and increases capacity for endurance.

“Give me the man who laughs at poverty and misfortune! Give me the joy which is independent of circumstances, and lifts above environment!

“No matter how hard your lot, or how dark the day; if you work a little good cheer into it, it will lift your life above a joyless existence. Cheer will take the drudgery out of your work, and make it more interesting. It will make you more interesting, too; for dry, over-serious people are, as a rule, monotonous and unattractive. The man who never laughs is dull and uncompanionable. His capacity for enjoying life, or making it pleasant for others, dries up and atrophies.

“A great many people never learn to laugh heartily. A sort of half smile or a disagreeable chuckle is as far as they ever get. They look upon whole-souled merriment as a misdemeanor, a breach of good manners. They can not imagine such an unbecoming performance in a well-regulated home. If the children get a little boisterous, they must be hushed. They are told to sit down and be quiet. Their little lives are suppressed until they almost lose the power of spontaneous, hearty laughter. It is positively sinful to suppress the fun-loving tendencies in the young. They were intended to bubble over, to be joyous and happy; and to exult in mere existence. A sober, gloomy face on a child should be impossible. Let the children laugh and romp and play. What have care and trouble to do with young life? Anxiety and worry in the face of a child show that somebody has been criminal.

“There is nothing else the world needs so much as sunshine, and the greatest benefactor of mankind is the man or woman who has the wealth of a cheerful, helpful disposition. There is a great opening in the ‘cheering-up business.’ There is plenty of room in it for everybody, and it does not interfere with any other vocation. Make it a hobby, if you want to be happy and successful.”

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”